


Voicemails

by autumnsolstice9



Series: Robb & Arya [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, not starkcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 03:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9104269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsolstice9/pseuds/autumnsolstice9
Summary: tumblr prompt: things you said over the phone





	

Arya lives on different timelines than her family. Her deceased father would have understood her- Jon understands, but he’s North and unable to be contacted- so she feels beside herself. The other Stark’s seem to move forward in calculated motions. Their timeline is jerky motions of starts and stops; they pause, they move four steps forward, they pause again.

It’s different for her. She is impulsive- her timeline is linear, she takes each day at a time. With each opportunity presented she makes split second decisions, not waiting to see what else presents itself. Arya lives off what is given, not waiting to see what she receives in the future.

This is why, after her father’s death in a car crash, Arya had left. She couldn’t stand to be in the family house, seeing remnants of her father. She can remember the scream of the tires, the screams of Sansa, and waking up in the wreckage to find her father dead and her sister hysteric. The pitying looks her family sent her made her feel trapped, the reporters that hounded after her left her on edge.

So she had left, disappearing into the night with a suitcase and some cash, a note on the kitchen table the only explanation. It is how she found herself in Braavos, living in a seedy apartment while she attended classes at the local college. She had tried to call home, but she was sent to voicemail.

This is the timeline of her family- stops and starts- and everyone appears to be stopped at the moment. Arya can only imagine the anger and bitterness they feel towards her, resenting her for leaving the family during a time of need, and she knows that she won’t hear from them until they shift their timeline forward to a start, away from the pause that is Eddard Stark’s death.

So she leaves voicemails. They’re short and simple, just an “I’m okay” or “I’m still figuring things out”, but she clogs their house phone with messages.

For now, it is enough.

Arya ignores how each time she picks up the phone, it feels heavier in her hands.

***

After a while, Arya stops leaving voicemails. She is busy in Braavos- she has college courses and a job on the side as well as boxing classes- and each time she reaches to pick up the phone, she stops halfway.

It has been four months since she left Winterfell- four months of isolation and working through her grief. She misses her family, but each time she thinks of heading back home she feels nauseous. Her dreams are haunted by icy roads and her father’s corpse, of blood on snow. 

She wakes up in her small apartment each night with screams in her throat.

It’s during these moments that Arya wants to talk to her family the most, but she doesn’t even know who to talk to. She would have called Jon, but he couldn’t receive calls. She would have fallen back to sleep to her father’s soothing voice, but he’s dead and his ghost is heavy on her shoulders. Bran would be the next option, but she doesn’t want to burden him. Ever since his fall, he has been plagued by burdening dreams and visions. Arya refuses to add to that.

Rickon is too young and she’s never been close to Sansa, and though Arya thinks of herself as brave, she is too afraid to face the pain she’s caused Catelyn Stark just yet.

After these nightmares, she’ll occasionally call Robb, but only if the nightmare is particularly horrifying. He never answers- she doesn’t expect him to, it’s always early morning when she wakes with night terrors- and he never responds later in the day to her calls.

Arya wakes on one of these nights, her chest tight with the memory of the car crash, and calls Robb. “I know you probably still don’t want to hear from me,” she says, just as she beings every voicemail, “but I miss you. I miss Winterfell. I miss Jon Snow. I miss Father most of all.” Her voice cracks and she begins to cry a little, and she’s sure Robb will be able to tell if he listens to her voicemail.

“I’m doing okay, I think. I’m in college here, trying to make a future like Father would have wanted. It’s just community college, but that’s something, and I’m getting really good grades. I can transfer credit over to Winterfell’s college when I go back home. If I’m allowed back home.”

She pauses in her rambling. She’s sure her family would never kick her out and refuse to let her live with them, but for the first time in her life she feels uncertain. They haven’t talked to her in months- what if they’re still angry after she finishes her first semester in Braavos?

It’s a sobering thought. “If you don’t want me back, I understand. I just… I need you to know I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left without a word, but I couldn’t be there anymore. I thought that leaving Winterfell would help, but I still have nightmares. Every night, Robb, every single night I have dreams of the crash.” 

She takes a deep breath, collecting herself piece by piece, willing the memories away.

“I’m working on dealing with remembering things. I’m getting there. I’ll get there eventually.” She ends the call, not knowing whether her brother will actually listen to her voicemail.

In her empty room she whispers, “I love you, Robb,” and goes back to sleep to dreams of nothing.

***

She eventually stops leaving Robb voicemails.

He never answers or sends any texts, so she figures she must be annoying him. Two more months and her first semester of college is coming to a close, and the nightmares are slowly going away.

She hasn’t heard from her family in six months, but she doesn’t blame them. If Arya were in their shoes, she’d be mad as well.

_Besides,_ she tells herself, _it’s not as if you had anything important to tell Robb. You just told him the same thing, over and over. It never made a difference._

Everything changes when she gets stabbed.

She is walking back to her apartment, slightly distracted as she mentally reviews for her history final, when a girl comes up to her. Arya thinks she recognizes her from her boxing class, but she isn’t sure.

“Piece of scum,” the girl hisses, and before Arya can react there is a knife in her gut. The girl slides it in twice more, twisting it during the last stab, and Arya collapses.

Before she registers the pain, all she can think of is that it’s definitely the girl from her boxing class. She can remember the girl taunting her during her first days until Arya eventually beat her in a fight, and apparently the girl’s hatred is enough to make her stab Arya.

Once she processes that, the pain hits her, but she has to keep moving. If she lies down in the street, she’s sure to die. She holds on to her abdomen, blood spilling out of her, and heads in the direction she thinks the hospital is, calling an ambulance on her way.

Her vision is getting fuzzy, and before she passes out she calls Robb.

He doesn’t answer, but she never expected him to. There is the beep on the other end, indicating that she can begin to leave her message, and Arya takes a shaky breath.

“Hi Robb,” she says, her voice slurring a little, “I just wanted you to know I love you! Tell Mother and Bran and Rickon and even Sansa that I love them, too! And make sure Jon knows I love him a lot and can’t wait for him to come home.”

She is sobbing a little, black spots dancing across her face as she trudges on down the street. “Robb,” she whispers, her voice cracking, “I’m really hurt right now. I think I might die.”

She’s definitely beginning to black out now, her legs giving way as she collapses to the ground with a thud. “I’m scared, Robb,” she sobs, her phone still in her hand as she lays on the ground, bleeding out, “I’m really scared.”

Arya never stays awake long enough to end the call.

***

She wakes up in a hospital room three days later.

The room is empty, save for police who need her to give a statement.

When she looks at her phone, there are no messages on it. 

This time when she calls Robb, he answers.

“Arya?” he breathes out, and she nearly cries just from hearing his voice after all this time.

“Yeah, Robb, it’s me. I’m okay, I’m okay now.” Tears are pricking the corner of her eyes and she is so immensely grateful he picked up her call. “Can I come home now?”

His laugh is watery and filled with tears, but to Arya is sounds like sunshine. “Of course you can come home. Of course.”

They stay on the line with each other a while longer, both just crying into the phone, and the last thing he tells Arya before hanging up is that he loves her.

After she’s done retaking finals, she books a flight and heads back home to Winterfell, dreaming of her older brother with red hair instead of the red fire of a car crash.

***

He is waiting for her at the airport, and if she could run without tearing her stitches she would. As it is, she lightly jogs to him, allowing him to wrap her in a hug and press a kiss to the top of her head.

“I missed you,” she breathes out.

His smile speaks of sorrow and regret, but in it there is also happiness. “I missed you, too. Let’s get you home.” He begins to walk away, but Arya doesn’t move.

“Robb, did you listen to my messages? Why didn’t you answer?” she says, finally asking the question that has been bubbling in her chest since she bought a ticket back to Winterfell.

He stops in his tracks, and turns around to face her. She notices how Robb looks somewhat stiff, but she’s sure most people would have the same reaction when faced with the question. “You needed time to heal,” he says after a moment of silence. “Why else would you leave? Sansa was furious, Mother and Bran were upset, and Rickon didn’t understand what was happening. I’ll admit that I was mad for a while, but then you started leaving me messages and god, Arya, you sounded like you were in pain. You kept saying you missed us. Why would you leave us, who you missed, if it wasn’t important?”

She has never loved Robb more than she does in this moment. He’s never been the best at articulating his feelings, but he has always expressed himself in body language, and right now he is as open as a book. His words don’t seem to say much, but she reads between the lines:

_I was mad, but I’ve forgiven you. You had your reasons for leaving. You went away to heal, you went away for something important._

It’s written in his melancholy smile, the way he keeps running his hands through his hair, and the taut line in his shoulders- he feels helpless.

“You kept saying you needed to figure things out. I thought you might need time. Besides,” he adds, a hurt tone in his voice, “I’m not Jon, or Bran, how was I supposed to help?” And there is the admission- he knows he is not the favorite, that he is not even second choice, and because of it he didn’t know what to do. 

In his own strange, very Robb-like way, he helped immensely, so Arya grabs his hand and rests her head against him. “You did more than enough, Robb. You listened. I can never thank you enough for that. You may not be Jon or even Bran, but you were enough.”

They move through the airport terminal after that, and when she arrives back in Winterfell she can feel the ghost of Ned Stark beginning to latch on to her, but Robb squeezes her hand and she knows that tonight, for the first night in a long time, she won’t need to leave a voicemail. This time, Robb will be right there.

**Author's Note:**

> i h8 dialogue but i love robb and arya


End file.
